Your ideas are hugely valuable.

--S.B., Orinda, CA, novelist

“The endeavor of writing can be long and lonely. Mary Carroll Moore, master writing instructor, to the rescue! Moore packs How to Plan, Write, and Develop a Book with years of gritty good sense and big-picture perspective. Her techniques for drafting, organizing, and polishing a book are practical and time-tested. Here is a first-time book-writer’s best companion.”

--Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew,author of Writing the Sacred Journey: The Art and Practice of Spiritual Memoir

If I could implement all I've learned from you, I'd have a best-seller!

Pretend you’re a reporter for the New York Times. You’re going to interview your book idea.

List some questions you’d love to ask your book about its form, content, goals. You can start with something nonthreatening, as you would if you were a real reporter.

Ask your book some very good questions. Some ideas from my class are below, or you can make up your own:

What do you want to tell me about yourself?What form suits you best?Who is your readership and how will theyaccess you?What are you most eager to say?What are you most afraid to say?What genre are you?

When it runs out of things to say (or you getnervous about the answers) ask a different question.

The goal of this book-writing exercise is to surprise yourself. You’ll tap the hidden parts of yourself as a writer, the parts we often censor. You can strike gold--if you maintain the attitude of no-assumptions and anything can happen.

Books for the Blocked--These'll Get You Moving Again!

Escaping into the Open by Elizabeth Berg

Listen to Me by Lynn Lauber

Marry Your Muse by Jan Phillips

Pencil Dancing by Mari Messer

The Art of Slow Writing by Louise DeSalvo

Thinking about Memoir by Abigail Thomas

Write Your Heart Out by Rebecca McClanahan

A person’s life purpose is nothing more than to rediscover, through the detours of art, or love, or passionate work, those one or two images in the presence of which his heart first opened.Albert Camus

Friday, February 17, 2017

I
like picking up what I call "airport reads," just to see what's up in
commercial fiction. Airport reads are those books that airport
bookstalls buy, thinking they'll take travelers' minds off flying. It's
a big coup to get your book in an airport bookstall, and over the
years, I've seen more serious fiction arrive on those shelves.

Recently, I got a copy of JoJo Moyes' new book, After You. Her novel, Me before You,
a story of a woman caretaker for a paraplegic who helps him with
assisted suicide, was made into a movie, and I enjoyed it a lot--good
characters, tense situation. Moyes is a master wordsmith, expertly
pacing her stories. After You is the sequel, as you may have
imagined, and it also starts with a bang--the main character falls off a
roof and has to return home to her parents while she heals.

This
is an airport read, so it's not deep, but it's entertaining. I started
the novel one night before bed and stayed up later than I wanted,
unable to stop reading the first two chapters, enjoying the dialogue,
the expert delivery of character, the pacing.

Then I hit the
third chapter. Hmmmm, I thought, it almost felt like it was written by
another author. Slow, heavy with backstory, the interrelationships not
as deftly shown on the page.

I needed my sleep so I put it
aside. Tried to pick it up the next night, got through chapter 3, but I
haven't wanted to go back to it since.

I spoke with a friend
who'd read it. "It's a good story, worth reading," she said, "but I
also noticed a slow down after those opening chapters."

The writing teacher (and writer) in me got intrigued.

So
this week, I spent some time studying the structure. The most obvious
element I noticed was that chapters 1 and 2 were mostly scene. They had
a brisk pace, lots of tension, lively dialogue, and specific settings.
Chapter 3 was mostly summary. Lots of backstory, not much happening, a
good deal of the chapter presented as thoughts and feelings. Very slow
stuff.

A basic difference between scene and summary.

One
of my writing students had asked about scene and summary in class this
week, so perfect timing. My research would come in handy.

Basic definitions of scene and summary:

Scene:
includes specific location, characters moving around onstage
(movement), and dialogue. There's tension, things are happening.
Usually doesn't include much backstory or time passing.

Summary:
can span many locations, events are often condensed or summarized, lack
of movement onstage, not much tension. Often includes backstory.

Effect on the reader: Scene promotes tension and movement, a faster pace. Summary is like a pause to absorb, reflect.

When to use either: If you want tension, use scene. If you want the reader to pause, use summary.

It's
not that I'm a scene junkie. I like well-written summary as much as
the next reader. But placement is everything. When Moyes chose
summary for her third chapter, as a reader I was stalled out. I still
needed the build of tension before all that summarized backstory got
thrown in. It might have worked in smaller doses, along with scenes.
It might have worked in a later chapter. As it is, I'm probably going
to drag myself back to the book and work through my resistance as a
reader, but I'm also going to look at my own (and my students')
scene/summary balance much more carefully.

Your Weekly Writing ExerciseSee
if you can identify scene and summary in a piece of published writing.
Then ask yourself how it comes across to you as a reader. Finally,
where has the author placed it, in the book? Is it appropriate to that
spot?

Then look at one of your own beginning chapters. Do a
careful scan for summarized sections and get ruthless: Do you really
need them, just here? Would they be better used later, in smaller bits,
or not at all?

Follow by Email

Upcoming Writing Classes with Mary

Whether you are trying to write the story of your life for publication or as a family legacy, this class by the author of two memoirs will show you how to organize your stories into readable, interesting work. You'll be introduced to a simple formula that successful authors use to find the central conflict of their story, then plan, organize, and write scenes and chapters around it. We'll explore the value of themes, how action and reflection balance one another in memoir and creative nonfiction, and authorial voice versus narrative voice. $105. Click here for details or to register.Writing RetreatsYour Book Starts Here: Week-long Writing Retreat July 30-August 3, Madeline Island School of the Arts, Lake Superior Five days of workshop, personal coaching, and plenty of time to work on your book in our great community of book writers at all stages, working in all genres, on gorgeous Madeline Island off the coast of northern Wisconsin. This retreat will become a highlight of your summer. Great meals and lodging on campus. $775. Click here for details.

Independent Study for Book Writers July 30-August 3, Madeline Island School of the Arts, Lake Superior Craving time, quiet, and a wonderful space to finally get working (or finishing) your book? But enough support each day, plus community, to do it sanely and safely? Five days of personal coaching, plenty of time to write, and optional workshops to attend make this independent study week productive, creative bliss. Great meals and lodging on campus. $775. Click here for details.

A Little about Me . . .

Mary Carroll Moore is an award-winning, internationally published author of thirteen books in three genres, writing teacher, editor and book doctor for publishing houses. For thirty years she's helped thousands of new and experienced writers plan, write, and develop--and publish!--their books. Photo by Bruce Fuller Photography.

Free Weekly Writing Exercise

Want to get a free writing exercise each week? There are four easy ways. Click on the RSS feed (above) Click on Follow This Blog (below). Subscribe to: Posts (Atom).Or sign up on my website (check Free Weekly Writing Exercise). You can unsubscribe anytime, and I don't rent or sell my mailing lists.

Subscribe to this blog

If you believe you have a book inside you just waiting to come out, here is a guide that will ensure your book’s arrival in the world. In clear, accessible prose, Mary Carroll Moore leads the aspiring author through every step of the challenging, rewarding process of developing and completing a full-length book.

--Rebecca McClanahan, author of Word Painting

Encouraging Words--Well-Known Writers with Large Number of Rejections--But Published!

Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo--397 rejections (and it became a movie)A Wrinkle in Timeby Madeleine L'Engle--97 rejections (and it won the Newbery Medal for best children's book of 1963; it's now in its 69th printing)Cinder Edna by Ellen Jackson--40 rejections (and it has won multiple awards and sold 150,000 hard copies). Judy Blume says she received "nothing but rejections" for 2 years.Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot--17 rejectionsHarry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling--rejected by 9 publishersThe Diary of Anne Frank--16 rejections (and now more than 30 million copies are in print)Dr. Seuss books--more than 15 rejectionsJonathan Livingston Seagullby Richard Bach--140 rejectionsGone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell--38 rejectionsWatership Down by Richard Adams--26 rejectionsDune by Frank Herbert--nearly 20 rejections

To all book writers: Believe in your story. Keep trying. The right home for your book is out there, waiting for you to discover it.

Want to get the creative brain going?

Book writers (and any writers) need to know how to engage the creative right brain that "writes" in images. Think of any wonderful book that's left you swimming in a setting or characters--the writer has successfully used the image-creating part of the brain. But our normal workaday lives short-circuit this part. Check out this cool video of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain scientist at Harvard Medical School, recounting her personal experience of a left-brain stroke and her awakening to right-brain reality. Pretty amazing fusion of brain science with what it feels like to a brain scientist having a stroke:http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

Flying Squirrels Bring Creative Jolt to Novelist

Flying squirrel gets into house--disrupts routine, gets novelist thinking differently. This happened to me! For two days, as I chased the squirrel (actually, it was all night since they are nocturnal), I slept very little. And got many new ideas for my novel-in-progress.Go figure!Maybe...book writers need creative jolts? Routine dulls our imaginations? How has an unexpected interruption actually been a gift for your creativity this week?

At the Loft Literary Center, I can always tell which students in my classes have taken Mary Carroll Moore’s class on book-writing. They talk about writing their book in "islands" and using storyboards to figure out how those sections relate to each other. When another student confesses to feeling overwhelmed by the material her memoir might include, they readily advise, “You should try Mary Carroll Moore’s method.” I second that.--Cheri Register, author of Packinghouse Daughter and American Book Award winner

Copyright ProtectionIf you are a copyright owner of any unattributed image or text on this blog, send me an e-mail and I will remove it or give you credit, whichever you prefer.